The Lebrus Stone (26 page)

Cray and I lay on the floor of my room. It was peaceful as I listened to his heart beat like normal, easier, steadier.

It had all happened. Cray and I had slept together. It had been a spur of the moment; desires and an overdue longing had taken over, and we did it, we…made love?

To be honest, I wasn't exactly sure what to call it, but it felt like love making to me; every second had been heartfelt, driven by an insatiable hunger, but full of emotion. So much was let go of during it, so much of him had entered me and would always stay. The essence of him had become a part of me and mine. We had fused together, physically and mentally. We would always be bonded this way.

I wanted us to be.

Of course, it was reckless to have slept with him and without using protection when I barely knew him. But it felt like I had known him a lifetime through his thoughts and feelings. I trusted him. I knew he was safe to allow this close. I felt certain it was meant to be. It couldn't have been any other way. And call it naivety, but my heightened senses told me it wouldn't lead to an unplanned pregnancy. I knew it as sure I knew the sun would rise tomorrow.

Besides, I'd had no control over my mind last night. It had become lost, in him, the feelings I thought I would never be capable of experiencing: a unity with the opposite sex. I admit I wasn't myself in those moments. I was actually glad I hadn't been my usual reserved and over cautious self.

What we experienced was surely going to lead us on to bonding in a much stronger way; he wouldn't change with me now, he couldn't. He wouldn't worry about it being wrong. And the lights that had appeared couldn't have been imagined. Maybe they represented our feelings for each other, like our eyes had. Maybe they represented what we were to become. Maybe only we could see it. Maybe only him and I, like a rare few, had that kind of a connection with somebody… Maybe…

~ * ~

Morning light seeped in through the crack of my curtains, brightening my room a little so that I could see our scattered clothes, my skin bitten and marked where Cray had thoroughly roamed me.

He pulled me closer and whispered in my ear.

I waited for him to pull away, but he didn't. I wondered if he was waiting to leave as I slept.

But he kept on whispering, things I couldn't really hear. And I was cautious not to, just in case he was begging for my forgiveness.

I pushed him onto his back so I could lie on top of him. We were still naked, our skin damp and sensitive. Well, mine was. Every glide of contact to his muscular body made me tingle and have to hold in a gasp, even a moan of delight at getting to be this close to him. I liked the way we fit together, the way I reacted so easily to his touch, the way he seemed obsessed with exploring me just as much. I smiled.

He kept his eyes closed, but it looked as though he was smiling, too. As if he could hear what I was thinking and was agreeing.

I kissed his lips and he immediately responded, just as fervid and passionate as before, like he was thirsty and his life depended on drinking from me. The feeling was mutual.

He sat up and leaned against my bed. I straddled him, guiding his mouth where I wanted it. When I stopped kissing him and moved my hands from around his neck, he looked at me, the middle of his brow wrinkling.

"You should probably leave," I said in a lowered voice, my insecurities resurfacing. I was unsure why it mattered to be so quiet anymore. But now that I'd remembered we weren't alone, it was important not to be overheard by the rest of the house. Even if they were on the upper level.

"Leave?" He sounded genuinely taken aback. Maybe even disgusted.

"You might want to sooner or later."

He pressed his forehead to mine. "I doubt that." He trailed his finger up and down my spine. I held him, waiting for the moment to change, to see where I stood.

He just inhaled me deeply from my neck, brushing his nose to the base of my throat and along my collarbones. His heart thudded against mine. "Unless you want me to stop," he said, his voice a quiver.

"No," I whispered.

His lips moved into a smile against my shoulder. "Then I can keep having my way with you?" He bit my arm. It reminded me of the dream in the study. But I knew now it had been showing me the raw, sexual energy that would coarse be between us; that it meant nothing sinister.

"Haven't you already?" I flushed.

He moved his head to the side of my face and took my earlobe into his mouth. He sucked and teased it with his teeth. I shuddered, expressing the pleasure in a way that came out as an embarrassing moan. He laughed in my ear and sighed my name, just like he had before he kissed me last night.

He continued to say it, in different ways, sending shivers down to my tailbone and the tips of my fingers and toes. His voice created a fluttering in my stomach. The kind I knew I would only experience with him. It was something now vital to me, body and spirit.

I moaned. It was spontaneous. It couldn't be helped. Cray conducted through me like a lightning bolt to a metal fence. Except I turned as flimsy as rubber at his touch, an insulator to all else involuntarily forgotten.

"I have," he said finally, intensifying the heat as his lips came over mine. "Though not as much as I should have."

The prospects of what he implied gave me goose bumps and a dizzying array of intense shivers. It made my head boom and hurt. I realized my limbs ached, perhaps all the way down to my marrow. It was like I had woken from a coma. Maybe this is what it felt like when you experienced something so sexually charged.

"Are you feeling ok?" he asked, his concern all the more genuine than the last time.

I touched my head. It felt heavy, the way it usually did after waking up from one of my blackouts. But I hadn't fainted.

"I'm not sure," I said. "My head's starting to hurt."

He put a hand behind my head and under my knees, and carefully lifted me to place me in my bed. The softness of my pillow was an instant help.

I began to doze off. I didn't want to. But it was happening against my will.

He shushed me as he covered me with the sheets. I must have been trying to speak. Although I couldn't feel my lips open. They just tingled from all his amazing kisses.

His face faded, and his smile was just about visible, flipping my stomach and jumbling up my thoughts. But he was still beside me.

He wanted me. He dreamed of me.

~ * ~

A knock on my bedroom door woke me. It was late, almost three in the afternoon, but I hadn't had enough sleep to aid the throbbing in my head. It pined for something. I didn't know what.
A sledge hammer?

The door opened though I didn't say it could. I chose not to throw anything when it turned out to be Cray, carrying in a tray of fresh fruit. There was a tall glass of my favorite freshly squeezed orange juice and another glass filled with flowers: red roses.

Yikes.
Was this really happening? Was this the real Cray? I had never had breakfast served to me in bed. Not by a likely interest, so ruggedly handsome, he needed some kind of a legal permit to be walking around in public. Especially when the compliment wasn't supposed to make me want to hurl up my insides.

"Thought you might need this." He smiled, flashing his perfect white teeth, the kind that could light up an entire room of dull and miserable people. But he managed that anyway. Smile or no smile. Clothes on or…off.

"What?" he asked, placing the tray beside my lap. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," I said, somehow straight faced as I picked up a strawberry.

He raised an eyebrow and grinned, stroking a hand up my arm. I almost gasped as I tried to keep breathing. I was still naked. Bashfully, I lifted the sheets. It wasn't like he hadn't seen everything, but I still felt over exposed in this much daylight.

He removed his hand and looked to the side just as shyly. Not that I knew why. He had been so confident earlier, it was hard to believe he could be insecure about anything, not for long anyway. He had no need to be. He had well defined abs and muscles in places I hadn't known could exist. He had moves, plenty of them that would have required plenty of practice. I tried not to think too much about the "with whom" part of that thought.

"Why are you blushing?" he asked, half confused, the other half seeming too pleased with himself.

"It's hot." It was again for a change. I bit something and frowned: a whole kiwi fruit. My tongue felt grated.

He chuckled and took it. "Here," he said. "Let me." He picked up a slice of peach from the plate and held it to my lips. They were tender from all the kissing.

I opened my mouth and let him slip the fruit into my mouth. I slowly took a bite; his thumb brushed my bottom lip, while his finger lingered in my mouth. He brought out a confident, seductive side of me, so I took my time sucking on his finger, watching his eyes turn a smoldering golden brown as he licked his lips.

I bit his finger and he winced. When I let go, he trailed his finger all the way down to my chest, just above my cleavage. I stopped him before he could move the sheets.

"Spoilsport." He smirked..

"Pervert."

"That so?"

I nodded, smiling like a goon. It was like my life was just beginning; like Cray was to make me a new and better person.

He suppressed a smile and bit his lip, which could only have meant one thing. He was going to say something difficult. "I don't know what happened to me earlier."

"Which part?"

He looked a little disheartened to continue. Though he was misconstruing what I meant about by which part. Since last night could have been a confused reference to the early hours of the morning.

"I think you know which," he said glumly. "There've been quite a few times I've behaved wrongly."

"You were wrong to confuse me," I agreed. "And you were wrong to be so hot and cold with me all this time, if that's what you're referring to." His hand relaxed and he held my hand.

"That's the part I'm mostly sorry about. It…he…" He flustered and took a deep breath. "I just…wouldn't be able to stand to see you hurt."

"With you like this I won't get hurt."

He looked insulted rather than flattered.

He gripped the sheets. His eyes turned an omnipresent black.

He lifted my hand and kissed it, clasping my wrist. "I'll never hurt you again. Not even if you choose to hate me."

I touched his cheek. "I don't think I could ever hate you, Cray."

He looked unconvinced, but smiled anyway, a raffish smile with no intention of ever believing me.

"Too much has happened between us," I reminded him.

This time he faintly blushed. Blood rushed to my own face at the thought of what that could mean.

Did I make him nervous? Self-conscious and even a little love struck? For me? The girl he once couldn't stand to be alone with?

"I wouldn't lie to you about how I feel," I said, my voice steady even though I trembled like a leaf.

"I want to believe you," he muttered, definitely conveying nervousness. "I want to believe you would want me over anyone else." He inhaled another deep breath. "I'm not used to being this…" He rubbed his forehead. "This…" He sighed and closed his eyes for a few seconds. "It's just…" He bit his lip. "I just couldn't get you out of my head. I couldn't keep hiding from how I felt about you." He shook his head like he was snapping at himself, then took both my hands and looked vehemently into my eyes like they held something he searched for, as if there was something in them he could find a way to explain. I heard him swallow. "You're too special. I don't know how I've managed all this time without you."

I watched him breathe into my palm. His words echoed in my head. I was speechless and unable to grasp it.

"I don't want to ever lose you." he added.  His eyes held so much sorrow and repentance at saying those words. He seemed crushed by the outweighing fears of hurting me, so that I knew he was telling the truth. It was real and it was happening to me. He was admitting what he previously couldn't. He was giving in to me when all this time it had only been me.

I was winning him all for myself. And I knew I deserved him. It felt like I had waited so long for somebody like him, the years had been beginning to burying me.

"Cray. I don't want to lose you either. I…"
Shall I tell him that I think I'm falling in love with him?
No, it was too much too soon. Love grew over time, not over a matter of days. This was just a strong, overpowering lust for now. "I need you too much. I don't think I can go back to how things were."

"You don't have to. I'll always be there for you now. You believe me, don't you? You have to promise me you'll always believe me."  He was adamant.

"I want to, but at the back of my mind I'm scared you'll change and leave me to cope with everything alone."

He held me. "I won't change. I'm sorry I ever did. I'm sorry I couldn't welcome you with open arms when you arrived. You just have to know that I wanted to, that I was hiding how I really felt the whole time."